On my way to the office I saw an honest-to-God hummingbird darting around a Northeast Portland front yard. In early November! It was all-too-apropos for this week’s Bitchtapes playlist, which features ten songs about our fine feathered friends.
1. Annie Lennox - Little Bird
Although Annie doesn’t have a bad set of pipes herself, she still can’t help but envy the songs of birds–and that whole flying thing.
2. Fleet Foxes - Meadowlarks
Fleet Foxes offer up a quiet ode to a couple birds of the field (“birds of the field” not being any sort of actual scientific classification).
3. Of Montreal - City Bird
An early Of Montreal track that harmoniously pleads for pigeons (and everyone else stuck in their own urban grind) to get some fresh air.
4. Erin McKeown - Blackbirds
According to Wikipedia, Righteous Babe and activist McKeown was originally an ornithology major at Brown (before you know, going down that music career path…)! Here’s her bluesy update on the nursery rhyme.
5. Sufjan Stevens - The Lord God Bird
Back when Sufjan Stevens had his ambitious 50 States projects, he still managed to get sidetracked by the endangered ivory-billed woodpecker of Illinois, and wrote a lovely song about it.
6. Guided By Voices - Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
Necessary evils are the subject of this in typically messy-as-carrion GbV song.
7. Neko Case - Maybe Sparrow
Only one of Neko Case’s fowl-themed songs, a cautionary tale of knowing what’s around the corner.
8. Badly Drawn Boy - Dead Duck
A short instrumental, but one of many gems off of the About a Boy soundtrack.
9. Mountain Man - Loon Song
Off this Vermont trio’s superb acoustic debut Made the Harbor, “Loon Song” is typical of their haunting but lovely style.
10. Josephine Foster - Birdo
You can’t cage some things! For example, Josephine Foster’s voice.